Prophecy Illustrated. not propose to look at seriously. One plan after another, to get their attention to that lesson, and to my words about it, was tried by me without 66 147 PART I. The Teacher's Teaching Work. CHAPTER 4. Methods of the Teaching Process. any success. I saw that something out of the ordinary line was a necessity. Finally, I spoke up quickly, and with a show of real interest in my question: "Boys! did any one of you ever see a sheep-shearing?" It was a question at a venture in a city school; but one of the boys answered exultingly: "Yes, I did once, when I was out in the country." That boy was interested. Now, to interest the others. "Boys!" I said, speaking up earnestly to all in the class. 'Boys! Just listen, all of you. Billy, here, is going to tell about a sheep-shearing he saw, out in the country." That caught the attention of all, and they bent forward in curious interest. 66 Now, how was it, Billy?" Why, one old fellow just caught hold of the sheep, A sheepand sat down on his head, and another one cut his wool off." Explicit, graphic, and intelligible that! The narrator had conscious pride in his results of travel. The listeners were attent at the recital of something quite outside of their range of observation. "How much noise did the sheep make about being sheared?" "He didn't bicat a bit!" "Well, now, how does that story agree with what the Bible says about sheep-shearing? Just look at this lesson, all of you, and see what it does say. There, in the last part of the seventh verse: 'As a sheep before her shearers is dumb, so he openeth not his mouth.'" shearing. PART I. CHAPTER 4. Having the habit of attention. Testing attention. Attention was now fairly caught; caught, and attached to a lesson not the best suited to the teaching of untrained scholars in a mission-school. one. Giving attention, when one wants to give it, as well as continuing one's attention when he has given it, is a matter of habit. And there is hardly a habit of mind more difficult of acquiring than just this It has been said, indeed, that a man's power of learning, and a man's power of using his knowledge, depend more upon his ability of fixing and continuing his attention on what he sees or hears, or on what he would say or do, than on any other mental habit or quality. Hence it is important for a teacher to watch for any flagging of his scholars' attention while he is teaching, and to be prompt in recalling their attention when it is intermitted; and it is also important to have the scholars recognize their liability to be inattentive, even while they think their attention is fixed. Many a well-disposed scholar supposes he is attentive to the teaching, and his teacher supposes him to be so, when in fact his attention is not on the lesson, nor on its attempted teaching. Any fair test on this point would show the rarity and the difficulty of fixing and continuing attention. Let a teacher ask quickly of one of his scholars, by name, " Am I correct, or not, in what I said just then?" and in how many cases the honest answer would be, "Excuse me; but I wasn't giving close attention to what you said." Even in a Holding What is Gained. teachers'-meeting many a good teacher could be caught in inattention, by a question of that sort from the superintendent. If a teacher will, therefore, be in the habit of putting questions to one and another of his scholars in just that way, he will either hold his scholars' attention better than the average teacher, or he will show his scholars how inattentive they are in the habit of being. 149 PART I. Teacher's Teaching tention. Getting a scholar's attention is one thing. Holding a scholar's attention is quite another thing. Getting attention may be the work of a moment. Holding attention is a continuous and prolonged exercise. A scholar's attention may be caught almost without his consent. Its catching is the work of the teacher Holding atalone. But a scholar's attention will not long be retained by a teacher without his scholar's intelligent acquiescence. The teacher and scholar must work together to that end. In this matter, also, however, the teacher has a responsibility for the scholar's action; for unless a teacher is able to induce his scholar's co-work with him in the process of teaching, he so far fails in a teacher's mission. But, how to secure a scholar's co-work in the teaching-process, is a question to be treated by itself; although the three separate and yet inseparable elements of the teaching-process, attention, clearness, and co-work, are always as one and as three, as one in three and as three in one. PART I. Teaching CHAPTER 4. Clearness, the chief thing. II. HOW TO MAKE CLEAR THAT WHICH YOU The Main Point Now; Starting at the Bottom; Working Patiently; ATTENTION being secured from the scholar, the teacher has the duty of showing why he has sought that attention. The teacher knows what truth he would cause the scholar to know; but the scholar does not yet know it. It is, therefore, for the teacher to make clear to the scholar that which he is at tempting to teach him. It is not now a question for the teacher, whether the truth he would teach is the most important truth in the world; it is enough that it is the truth he is now trying to teach. Nor is he just now to strive at being attractive as a teacher, or impressive as a teacher; those qualities are very well in their way, but it is clearness, not attractiveness, or impressiveness, which is needed in making a truth clear; and in order to make a truth clear, a teacher's whole mind must, for the time Knowing the Scholar's Measure. being, be set on clearness of teaching; that must be the one thing he is living for, while it is the one thing he is attempting. 151 PART I. The Teacher's Teaching Work. CHAPTER 4. Methods of the Teaching Process. Know your mind. scholar's To make a truth clear to another involves as has already been shown-an understanding of that other's mind, in its attainments, its limitations, and its methods of working. The truth which is already clear in the teacher's mind must be made clear to the scholar's comprehension; and to this end the truth must be so phrased, so illustrated, and so applied, as to be clear-not alone to the one who imparts it, but to the one who is to receive it. It is not a question whether a certain putting of the truth ought to be clear to the learner, but whether it will be; not, whether that putting would be clear to another learner, to the average learner, but whether it will be clear to this learner. The superintendent of a prominent city Sunday-school was greatly surprised at finding, in his teacher's-meeting, that one of his teachers actually supposed Cornelius the centurion to be the leader, or overseer, of an Italian band of A band, music; but when the superintendent had learned that fact, he saw that the Bible phrasing just as it stood did not make clear the truth of the text to that teacher; hence some other phrasing was a necessity just there, in the effort to make the truth clear. Every teacher must be sure of his scholar's measure of knowledge on such a point as this. In order to make clear that which he would teach, a teacher must, leader. |